"It's a long story, young friends. Longer than you can likely conceive. So I will keep it short, for time, as you have shown me, is both endless and cruelly brief."
He shifted, the bones of his form groaning.
"We were the Vanguard. I was the Captain."
It paused, as if reminiscing about the past.
"We were the last line of defense when the Abyssal forces broke through the barriers. Our charge was not to win a war—such a thing was never possible against the endless hunger of the Abyss. Our task was to hold, to protect. To stand in the breach while the great minds and powers of our age worked their arts, weaving the seals that would sever our world from that consuming darkness. We were the dam against the flood..."
"We... We knew it was a one-way mission."
A profound sorrow seemed to radiate from him, colder than the chamber's air.
